


Good Night, Sweet Prince

by odinstark



Category: Hamlet (2009), Merlin (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Arthur Pendragon centric, Arthur Pendragon loses his mind, Assassination, Attempted Murder, Blood, Depression, F/F, F/M, Gay, Inspired by Hamlet, Lancelot is pining for Arthur, M/M, Mental Instability, Merlin is actually barely in a fic for once, Murder, Murder-Suicide, References to Hamlet, Soliloquy, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Treason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 10:04:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20544362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odinstark/pseuds/odinstark
Summary: Hamlet AU for Merlin. Idk. Its gay. It has the slut chaos energy of David Tennants Hamlet. This will be written in script format, fair warning. Enjoy.





	Good Night, Sweet Prince

_The corridor is dark. A man walks through the archway, his torch's beam bouncing off the stone wall. He looks extremely tired. Another figure approaches from the opposite side of the passage. _

Gwaine: Who's there?

Elyan: Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself, my friend.

Gwaine: Long live the King!

**[He scoffs]**

Elyan: Oh, is that you, Sir Gwaine?

**[Elyan smiles and Gwaine rolls his eyes] **

Gwaine: 'Tis he. 

Elyan: You come most carefully upon your hour. Most bored too. 

Gwaine: Hath now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Elyan. Warm thine heart with a cup of ale.

**[A silver flask is seen in Gwiane's cloak in the wavering torch light]**

Elyan: For this relief much thanks. 'Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart. But not so lonely as to find comfort in the brim of a mug. 

**[Gwaine shrugs and smirks again] **

Gwaine: To each their own. Have you had quiet guard?

Elyan: Not a mouse stirring. Too cold for most. 

Gwaine: Well, good night, dear Friend. If you do meet Lancelot and Merlin, the rivals of my watch, bid them make haste. 

**[Enter Lancelot and Merlin]**

Elyan: I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there? Friend or foe? 

**[The four men smile at each other] **

Lancelot: Friends to this ground.

Merlin: And unwilling liegemen to the Dane.

**[Lancelot pushes his shoulder, not unkindly] **

Elyan: Give you good night. 

Merlin: O, farewell, honest soldier. Who hath reliev'd you? Surely not..?

Elyan: Gwaine hath my place. Give you good night.

_ **[Exit: Elyan]** _

Merlin: 'Ello, Gwaine! Night duty is most unlike you. 

Gwaine: Merlin, my friend! Say- What, is Lancelot there ?

**[Gwaine waves a hand in front of his tired friend's face] **

Lancelot: A piece of him.

**[The three share a laugh] **

Gwaine: Welcome, Lancelot. Welcome, good Merlin.

Merlin: Has this thing appear'd again to-night? Have you seen? 

Gwaine: I have seen nothing.

Merlin: Lancelot says 'tis but our fantasy, and will not let belief take hold of him. Touching this horrible, cruel sight, twice seen of us.

Merlin: Therefore I have dragged him along, with us to watch the minutes of this dusk, That, if again this spirit come, he may approve our eyes and speak to it.

**[Lancelot rolls his eyes] **

Lancelot: Tush, tush, 'twill not appear. You two are tired and most delusional. 

Gwaine: Come, sit down awhile, and let us once again assail your ears, that are so very fortified against our story, what we two nights have seen.

Lancelot: Well, sit we down we will, and let us hear the unshakeable Gwaine speak of this. 

**[The three sit on the stone battlements, overlooking the dark courtyard below] **

Gwaine: Last night of all, when yond same westward star, had made it's course to illuminate to darkened sky, where now it burns, Merlin and myself, the bell then beating the new day's hour-

_**[Enter: Ghost]**_

Merlin: Gwaine! Shut thy fuck! Look where it comes again!

**[The three drop to the corridor floor again and Gwaine grips the pommel of his sword] **

Gwaine: In the same figure, like the Queen that's dead.

Merlin: Thou art a noble and intelligent gentleman; speak to it, Lancelot.

Gwaine: Looks it not like the dear Queen? Speak to it, Lancelot! 

Lancelot: Most like. Fills with me with pleasurable fear and frightened wonder.

Gwaine: It waits. It wishes it would be spoke to.

Merlin: Question it, Lancelot. Perhaps it is truly...the Queen. 

**[Lancelot steadies his breath] **

Lancelot: Announce it! What art thou? Together with that fair and mage-like form? In which the majesty of buried Denmark, did sometimes strut? By God's green heaves, I ask thee speak!

**[The ghost stares past them before turning and walking away] **

Merlin: It is offended.

Gwain: Lancelot, stop it! See, it stalks away!

Lancelot: Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee speak! I beg thee! 

_ **[Exit: Ghost] ** _

Merlin: Oh dear. 'Tis gone and will not answer. A shame. 

Gwaine: How now, Lancelot? Surely that is not you trembling and not your face looking pale? Is not this something more than fantasy? What think you? 

**[Gwaine says this with confidence, but his hands shake as he unscrews his hip flask] **

Lancelot: Before my God, I might not this believe... And without the sensible and honest vouch of mine own eyes.

Merlin: Is it not like the Queen?

Lancelot: As much as I am to myself. 

**[The two other men take a drink from Gwiane's flask, as the stars twinkle brighter still than before] **

Lancelot: Such was the very robes she had on, the very same as she donned in talks with the barbarous Scots. 'Tis a strange sight, my friends.

Merlin: And twice before, at this dead hour, with graceful placement, hath she gone by our watch.

Lancelot: In what particular thought to work I know not; What is her need? But, in the gross and scope of my opinion, this bodes some strange eruption to our state. Shadows fall on Camelot. 

Merlin: Good now, sit down, and tell me he that knows, why this same strict and most observant watch, what of the subjects of the land? I do not think the people order war instruments to plough their fields. 

Lancelot: That can I. Or so at least, the whisper goes so. Our late Queen, whose image even but now appear'd to us, was, as you know, by Lot of Essetir, thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride. Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Ygraine, did, regretfully, slay this King Lot; who, by a seal'd compact, well ratified by law and heraldry, did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands. 

Lancelot: Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror; against the which a moiety competent, was gaged by our Queen; which had returned to the inheritance of Lot, had he been vanquisher, as, by the same covenant and carriage of the article designed, his fell to Ygraine. Now, sir, young Lot's heir, rude and sour, hath in the skirts of Essetir, here and there. 

Lancelot: Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes, for food and diet, to some enterprise that hath a stomach in't; which is no other, as it doth well appear unto our state, but to recover of us, by strong hand and terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands. So by his father lost; and this, I take it, is the main motive of our preparations, the source of this our watch.

Gwiane:..I think it be no other but e'en so. Even mor'na reason to drink. War, after war. We grow like animals, Kings fall, Queens fall. We all fall..down.

Lancelot: Aye, a mote it is to trouble the mind's eye. Even in the most high and palmy state of Rome, a little ere the mightiest Julius fell, the graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets; As stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood, disasters in the sun; and the moist star.

Lancelot: And prologue to the omen coming on, have heaven and earth together demonstrated unto our climature and countrymen.

_ **[Enter: Ghost, again.]** _

Lancelot: But soft! behold! Lo, where it comes again! I'll ask it, though it blast me.- Stay illusion!

**[Spreads his arms]**

Lancelot: My majesty, if thou hast any sound, or use of voice, speak to me. It is Lancelot, friend of dear Arthur. If there be any good thing to be done, that may to thee do ease, and, grace to me, speak to me.

Lancelot: If thou art privy to thy country's fate, which happily foreknowing may avoid. O' speak! Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life, extorted treasure in the womb of earth (For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death),

**[A bird crows]**

Merlin: Speak of it! Stay, and speak!- Stop it, Gwaine!

Gwaine: Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

Lancelot: Wait. Do, if it will not stand.

Gwaine: 'Tis here!

Lancelot: Aye, 'Tis here!

Merlin: 'Tis gone!

_**[Exit: Ghost]** _

Lancelot: We do it wrong, being so majestically, to offer it the show of violence;o for it is as the air, invulnerable, and our vain blows malicious mockery.

Gwaine: Nay, It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

Lancelot: And then it started, like a guilty thing, upon a fearful summons. I have heard the cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat awake the god of day; and at his warning. 

Merlin: Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, th' extravagant and erring spirit ties to his confine; and of the truth here in this present object made probation.

Gwaine: It faded on the crowing of the cock. Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes, wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, the bird of dawning singeth all night long; and then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad, the nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, no fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, so hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

Lancelot: So have I heard and do in part believe it. Break we our watch up; and by my advice, let us impart what we have seen to-night unto dear Arthur; for, upon my life,

> _This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him._

Lancelot: Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it? As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

Merlin: Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know, where we shall find him most conveniently.

**Author's Note:**

> So? Like it or nah?


End file.
